


burn everything you love then burn the ashes

by eyesonfire



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Drugs, F/M, M/M, Semi-Dubcon, tw: sex work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:50:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyesonfire/pseuds/eyesonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He learned that some of them liked it when he called them master and some of them liked it when he said nothing at all and all of them liked it when he left, limping and in pain and they were sated and sweaty and had another lie to tell their wives.</p><p>Or the one in which Harry is a depressed sex worker, Zayn gives him drugs to dull the pain and Liam is their boss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burn everything you love then burn the ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Fall Out Boy "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark".
> 
> Angst. You have been warned.

 

 

The cold burn of alcohol stinging his abused throat wakes him up, makes him feel alive and he feels the haze retreat a fraction and he can sit up and breathe for a moment. He's home, thank god, not in a seedy motel somewhere or a disgusting room in a rundown apartment building and he breathes a sigh of relief because Liam is angry when they stay with clients. It's not often he can't remember the details of the previous night, and he wonders what Zayn gave him.

 

He remembers one of his regulars, a huge guy that fucks his homophobia and repression and self-loathing into Harry and leaves him wincing and crying and burning and he remembers taking a hit of something off Zayn before getting into the man’s plain black sedan and gritting his teeth. He moves, gingerly and he hisses because it fucking hurts, it always fucking hurts and he has bruises and scratches and he aches all over. It’s always like this, every morning, twelve hours to recover before doing it all over again and it always fucking hurts.

 

~

 

Youth always seemed eternal but here he is, eighteen and an old man. Bitter regret makes his bones weary, self-loathing makes his body heavy; desperation keeps him returning to Liam and to the streets.

 

~

 

He learned quickly and early, learned by necessity and learned out of self-preservation. He learned to take the money and take the shame and walk out with his head held high and his heart somewhere in his gut and his stomach churning. He learned to never let them see him cry, to never show weakness or affection, to hold his head up and grit his teeth and clench his fists and he will _never_ let any of them see him weak.

 

He learned to never let them win, to never show them how their cruel words affected him, to never break down in front of a client or Liam or anyone who wasn't Zayn or a bottle of Absolut.

 

He learned to smile prettily when he needed to, learned to moan and groan and say all the right things, to touch harder or softer or suck harder or deeper and he learned to act and to pretend he enjoyed it. He learned to hide his dead eyes from the world with a few shots of gin and a few pretty lies. He learned to not resist, that if they wanted to fuck you hard and rough it was easier to make your body to limp and not fight, meant less bruises and less pain and less anger from Liam.

 

He learned if they wanted you to do weird shit you either shut up and put up or you called Liam and got the fuck out of that situation but earned yourself an hour’s lecture and a week of a pissy Liam and sometimes Harry would take the chains and whips rather than Liam's anger. He learned to avoid confrontation and learned that an angry Liam meant less money and less food and god, if it was possible, less sympathy.

 

He learned that fighting less meant it was over quicker and he learned that he was a better actor than he ever thought he was. He learned to prep and lube himself before going out because there was no guarantee the guy would give a shit. He learned that he barely ever had to insist on a condom because the guys looked at him like trash, like garbage or shit they could catch something off and they didn't want to touch him more than was necessary, let alone put their precious dicks anywhere near him unprotected, like he was the depraved one.

 

He learned that some of them liked it when he called them master and some of them liked it when he said nothing at all and all of them liked it when he left, limping and in pain and they were sated and sweaty and had another lie to tell their wives.

 

He learned quickly how to shut off but leave his body switched on, learned to retreat into his own mind and leave his body an empty husk the client could use and abuse and take from what he wanted.

 

It was an art, he learned, perfecting the dance of being tempting without looking as though you've had the thousand before him that you have, looking good enough to eat but pretty enough to be clean and Zayn took him under his wing and showed him the steps.

 

He learned that Liam picked up on older business men's interest in him and he became marketed specifically to them. The dirty little secret you can leave behind on dirty motel sheets. The extra business meeting and late conference calls keeping them away from home, they say, dick buried deep in Harry and their own self-loathing. They’re all the same, as far as Harry can care to tell. Sharp suit, unremarkable face, a wife, three kids and a dog waiting in the suburbs, wanting to fuck the gay out of their own bodies and into his so they can go back to their perfect little lives.

 

~

 

It was after two years that Harry started breaking the rules, fucking these businessmen’s sons and it was completely different. Sometimes the men hired him to break in their sons, and he gritted his teeth and took the money.

 

He topped, he taught, he bottomed, he fucked them like he had been ordered to and he hated every minute he was some spoilt rich kids toy.  Sometimes he fucked the wives, just out of spite, licking his own taste into their skin, a dirty secret inked invisibly onto them, a silent revenge. Sometimes he managed to enjoy fucking the young boys, the ones that hadn’t learned their fathers’ cruelty, the virgins or the close enough’s, the ones who barely knew what they liked and didn't know how to ask for it. Sometimes he would top and the change would be enough to get him off.

 

Some of them were pretty, young and fresh faced and bright eyes, not much younger than him, and he would kiss their face and wish it was his own. Sometimes he bottomed, but it was so different to usual, hesitant and careful and gentle and he would get off sometimes, stroking himself roughly until he came on the unmarred skin that was his could-have-been.

 

But not often, no, not often at all. Because life was leather boots and fishnet gloves and cold fingers and two day old French fries. Life was rain and wind and shaking fingers on sleazy cars filled with sleazy men. Life was shit and life sucked but that was life and he'd made a promise never to pick up that bottle of pills again so he was stuck with it. He could deal with it, he could hold on, as long as he had Zayn to give him things to make him forget, and as long as he had his petty revenge in the form of fucking sons and wives of men whose come still leaked warm in his stretched body.

 

Life was begging for love on the corner of the street, a hungry heart and a mouth to feed. Life was everything Harry never thought he would be and everything he thought he deserved. Life was being dragged down by rain and tired eyes that hid behind fake smiles and breathy moans. Clothes ruined and skin marred, and life went on, day by miserable day.

 

Life is bleak and cold and he never seems to be warm enough or full enough or complete enough but then he thinks of leaving and he knows he would never last on his own, never last a day without this income and never last a minute without Zayn on the streets.

 

And so he pulls on his tight jeans and paints on his pretty smile and takes in the pink pill placed on his tongue and hopes that it’s enough to block out one more night and leave only echoes and imprints on his brain while he drifts in dreams and could have beens. 


End file.
